The day before his departure was announced,
Lyn Jones spoke to rucked.com (in what must have been his last interview as Ospreys' coach) – seemingly unaware of what was going to happen. Here's the full exclusive interview...
Hi Lyn, you okay?
Yeah, I’m cooking a steak and watching the cricket, things couldn’t be better.
We heard you were a bit of a cricket fan…
I love it, and my son’s a big fan too. He started playing two years ago when he was 12. He went to the middle for his first innings as opener and
played forward to a ball, which rebounded onto his pad and rolled back onto his stumps and he was bowled. It left him absolutely devastated, I
wasn’t there because I was over in Paris on a rugby course, but I understand there were tears as he came off. I managed to get [ex-England cricketer] Robert Croft to have a word with him and two years on he has
just represented West Glamorgan for the first time and he is over the moon.
Do you play at all?
Yes I play for my local village in the 5th Division of the local competition.
Batter or a bowler, or a bit of both?
Like everyone at that level I just chuck it down as fast as I can, but
apparently you have to watch out for my straight one, which can be quite
dangerous!
As for the rugby, you won at Twickenham in the EDF yet couldn’t win away
all season in the Magners – a season of highs and lows?
Our away form in the EDF and the European Cup wasn’t that bad. The thing
about the Magners League is that we had 18 matches, and out of those 18
matches we only had out whole squad to choose from on seven occasions,
which is obviously going to influence the performance of the side,
especially when you multiply that with the number of injuries we picked up
from the tail-end of last season.
And in Rugby World Cup year it was always going to be a tough one in the 100 metres sprint to the Magners League title. But we’ve made a lot of progress and going one better in the EDF was great, we were delighted with that. Qualifying from the pool stages of the European Cup for the first time was great, too. At the same
time having a phone call from a press guy saying that you’ve just had 13
players selected to start for Wales is up there with it. I was as equally
delighted to hear of Warren Gatland’s selection as I was with the EDF win.
Was that one of the nicer media calls you’ve taken this season, because
the knives have been out at times…
Sometimes, if they’ve [the press] got nothing to write about, they’ll get
stuck into people but that’s the way it is, I suppose. Whichever way you
look at it we still had the best defensive record of any team in the
Magners League, we conceded the fewest tries and fewest points. We’ve just
got to try get as many as our full squad up and running fitness-wise and
be ready for the start of next season.
Call it English arrogance but there is a perception across the Severn
Bridge that the Magners League is still a bit Mickey Mouse…
I think we’ve seen some good improvements in the league this year. The
Scottish sides have stepped up and Leinster deservedly won the league,
which was reward for their consistency over the last couple of years. I
think it is all going in the right direction
Gavin Henson was obviously a big loss in the run-in?
I think Gavin’s last game was against Sarries in the European Cup. He is a
player that has averaged 13 games per season for us in the last three
years and we’ve just had to get on with life without for large periods.
Another one of your stars is James Hook can you see his rivalry with
Stephen Jones, to give it an English slant, carry on as long as the Rob
Andrew versus Stuart Barnes fly-half debate of the mid to late 80s?
I think there’s always going to be that debate because they are at
different ends of the fly-half spectrum on how to play 10. While James is
amore adventurous type of player who’ll make something out of nothing,
Stephen is more of a game manager. Warren Gatland is very fortunate to
have both guys available. He is a lucky guy.
Luck obviously played a little part in Wales’ Grand Slam success but what
were your impressions of the way Warren and Shaun Edwards got to grips
with the job?
Well, you can’t say anything bad, because everything was good! They are
both very levelheaded and have a common sense approach to the game. Rugby
is not rocket science.
In terms of your summer, have you got all your recruitment out of the way
to get a break from the game?
Recruitment is a 12-month thing you can’t just switch on, switch off; you
are continually keeping an eye on your squad to see how it can be
strengthened.
And you never know when one of your squad wants to go back to New Zealand either!
The Justin Marshall story has run its course. Two years ago Jason Spice
went to New Zealand to play NPC with Wellington, last year we did a
similar thing with Stefan Terblanche – he went back to Natal, and we were
prepared to do that with Justin this year but Mile Phillips then did his
knee in, that was the real reason, not as reported inaccurately elsewhere.